Economics

Approximately 43 million student loan borrowers in the United States owe a collective nearly $1.75 trillion in federal and private student loan debt as of August 2022, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. But when you look at the average amounts owed, the case is crystal clear: Student debt is overwhelmingly an investment in professional credentialization that should never have been a obligation of the taxpayers in the first place.

These troubles came about with the beginnings of lockdowns based on the outrageous presumption that “the economy” could be turned off and then turned on again. In so doing, governments privileged some and harmed others, creating a caste system based on skills and technologies, and then, eventually, vaccine status. 

It’s the reason why the real economy is faltering and stagflation has become embedded: To wit, the gains in nominal income are being more than eaten up by soaring prices, paving the way for the worst bout of high inflation and falling real growth since the 1970s.

The Fed is driving the recession at a time when the ruling class has decided that the rest of us should be poor and hungry, driving Flintstone cars and foraging for food. The result, for now, is shocking stagflation. But we don’t even have a word yet for what might be coming. Depression is already used. How do you describe high inflation plus a manufactured depression?